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Comment by MarkMarine | Hacker News Reader

For this to work they must have already done facial recognition on everyone’s ID photos, so I fail to see what opting out even does for me from a privacy perspective. Seems like shutting the barn door after the horse is already out.

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Indeed, not to mention the availability of public social media photos. To think that every intelligence agency on earth hasn’t already trained FR across their databases of IDs and material voluntarily uploaded by themselves and their family/friends…

One reason I left Facebook early on was that I didn’t like getting tagged in photos the next morning after everyone would get home from parties. Too bad for me, as long as you have a friend who don’t value your privacy, there is nothing you can do about it.

Add to this any public event, where they are well within their rights to take your picture and match it against known threat actors and the only way to not play this game is to be a hermit

> One reason I left Facebook early on was that I didn’t like getting tagged in photos the next morning after everyone would get home from parties. Too bad for me, as long as you have a friend who don’t value your privacy, there is nothing you can do about it.

I hated this too, but there was an option to disable it. I know because I used it for that very reason. I don't know if they removed it; I left Facebook probably around a decade ago and it was there when I left.

Disabling never really disables. It just appears that way. Just as nothing is ever really deleted on those platforms.

It’s a question of normalization, not data.

  > They already have a little data, I fail to see why I shouldn't let them have everything.

That's the extreme version of your comment. But it is also a common sentiment that people have around social media and other data collection

I don’t see opting out as an effective method to counter over reach in this case, sounds like it just makes life slightly less convenient for the TSA staff and the rare people that choose to opt out. Is the idea that a critical mass of people opt out and that slows down security enough that this pilot program is viewed as a failure?

The other form of fighting back against this, pushing lawmakers, seems far more effective

  > The other form of fighting back against this, pushing lawmakers, seems far more effective

It's not an "OR" problem. You can do both.

  > just makes life slightly less convenient for the TSA staff

The point is to inconvenience them. I'm willing to bet you are exaggerating even to yourself how minimal this is. Besides, little things add up. It's why you're exhausted with this in the first place. It is how we got here. The accumulation of little things.

You’re right about that, and I salute your principled stance, but the last thing I want to deal with is making a protest at the checkpoint before I can get to the lounge.

These people are standing between me and a free glass of mid wine and the most comfortable place I’m going to be for the next <y> hours. They also have basically unlimited power to make my day worse, delaying me, searching me, doing all kinds of real violations of my rights.

Frankly, the quicker robots take their jobs the better, I hope this speeds it up.

  > the last thing I want to deal with is making a protest at the checkpoint before I can get to the lounge.

Remember from the article

  >> TSA Administrator David Pekoske in 2023 in which he said “we will get to the point where we require biometrics across the board.”

An important thing to remember is that power is exponentially more difficult to roll back than it is to give out. The danger is that power creeps and you have a hard time undoing the gains it made. Quite the common human problem of solving issues before they become issues. Perhaps because the reward is ambiguous and so doesn't "feel" as fruitful to most. But every preventable tragedy is doubly tragic.

  > They also have basically unlimited power to make my day worse, delaying me, searching me, doing all kinds of real violations of my rights.

  
    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

    —Martin Niemöller

I understand, but want to stress this. If I've learned anything in life, it is that it takes work to live a simple life. It is worth the work though, because it is less work. But it requires foresight. We humans are bad at that, but the capacity to plan is one of the things that sets us apart (other animals can plan, but not to the same level of sophistication). Be aware that it is always far cheaper to perform maintenance on something than it is to replace or fix something that is broken. This abstracts out to much of life. I get it, we're all tired in the airport, but by pushing the task off to another day, the debt compounds. Sure, you don't have to deal with it now, but the cost still exists, and accrues. You have to balance the equation for yourself, but we must be clear that there is a consequence to all actions, including inaction. Is your time now worth more than your time in the future? Maybe. You have to decide, but I hope you consider future you's opinion as well.

I must also remind you that the reason they have this power, the reason we have this security theater, the reason we have a "safety system" that kills more people than it saves[0], is because we've passed the buck. The reason we're at this state of exhaustion _RIGHT NOW_ is because of our accumulated debt.

So at the minimum, if you're too tired to protest, at least don't try to stop those who are trying to make your life better. Those who are trying to reduce the problem you are frustrated by. If you cannot make the effort, fine I won't judge, but if you convince someone else to choose apathy, then I will. Because frankly, it means you have made __MY__ life harder. Because you have sided with those you are complaining about.

  > Frankly, the quicker robots take their jobs the better, I hope this speeds it up.

I think this is very narrow minded. It is forgetting the past. There wasn't a problem before. Is there good justification as to why we cannot return? Because as I see it, robots replacing TSA is the epitome of what I mentioned before: power being exponentially harder to remove compared to handing it out. Sometimes it is best to replace a squeaky wheel, but sometimes you need to ask if it is even necessary in the first place. In this case, I think not. So no, I don't want robots TSA agents, because frankly, it isn't the humans than are the problem, it is the system.

We're humans. We're __capable__ of thinking through complex things. I hope we do not squander this gift we have.

[0] https://slate.com/business/2012/11/counterproductive-airport...

I'm not trying to advocate for apathy, I am happy there are people (like you) that are willing to have this fight, willing to sacrifice their time and risk being punished by the state for this.

Thank you. But I hope you can see how your first comment discourages others to

You're right about that, if I could edit it I would

No worries. We all make mistakes and we all need pushback. While we disagree on what actions we should take, I still appreciate that you've expressed yours. I want to make sure that no one ever prevents you from doing so.

I wonder how widely this is shared. I was shocked getting in to a Singaporean Airlines flight, and I didn’t even have to present my boarding pass. Just scanned my face at the gate and told me where I was sitting. (This wasn’t even terminal security)

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42230738

2. If people stand up for decency, they might get it.

Sure, but I'm not going to help them by volunteering additional visual data. It's also political. I'm not participating.

And then letter is correct. I had a guy retaliate for declining. He said I was making his job harder and that he'd make my life harder in return. I'm still waiting. Surely, as a TSA employee, he's got lots of connections in government. A lot of these people are unstable.

I've declined several times now, and have gotten harassed about it about 3/4 times. Whoever designed the program really did a good job getting buy-in from the lower-level employees.

Resolution, recency, additional training data to up accuracy.

Yeah, it seems pretty useless. Nothing stops them from simply doing this on publicly available data online as well.

We’ve known for over a decade that DHS, FBI, CBP, and local police buy location data.

https://www.propublica.org/article/no-warrant-no-problem-how...

The current program in limited beta test is called "TSA PreCheck Touchless".

So you need to be in TSA PreCheck, and you gave them your photo and fingerprints when you voluntarily enrolled in that program. They are probably using your passport biometrics if those are available as well.

https://www.tsa.gov/biometrics-technology/evaluating-facial-...

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